the Wheel turns

One phone call and everything changes. While I was still in NY, my supervisor called to say that I was being considered for the next telecommuting class and was I still interested?  Being able to do my day job from my home will mean 2+ more hours of each workday coming back to me to use however I want. Could more Art be in my future? Sure as hell won't be house cleaning! And going forward this blog will be the only input I have to FB. Having given up the time vampire Lexulous, I see no need to go there. Google reader let's me know when the people I care about have updates. likewise email notices when someone posts to me in FB.  There's been a lot of background buzz about "disconnecting" and I'm paying attention.

home

I'm home from whirlwind visit to family in NY. I was expecting fall to be well underway but when I arrived I was surprised to find Summer frozen in time - the leaves all still green and in place, the sun still strong and hot. When I mentioned it everyone shushed me strongly - they are hanging on to summer tooth and nail. Given the four gorgeous days I had there, it's all understood.

What with all the visiting around there wasn't much time for stitching but I hung a few doors on "Ocean Homes" and took a lot of pictures all over two counties. Hope to get them posted somewhere for the family to share.

Here's my Monet Moment. My family lives close to the vast NYC watershed reservoir system. Large numbers of mute swans congregate on the upper reaches of the reservoirs and winter over there and then spread out to ponds and rivers in the spring and summer. Getting closer shots of these birds involves a level of risk I am no longer interested in. These fuzzy long views will have to do.

September 11

 Later on this day of remembrance and reflection, I will pick up and finish a novel I've been reading, "Stones From the River" by Ursala Hegi.
It's about a community of regular people who allowed their government to fall into the hands of a charismatic leader and his cronies who snake charmed the people into accepting that any problems they were having, as a country and as individuals, were the fault of others in their society.

This government convinced people to  assign blame on "the others"  and while they looked the other way and abdicated responsibility, members of their community began to be arrested for no reason, their homes destroyed and their property confiscated. The country fell into wars with the rest of the world and was ultimately crushed. 

It really dismays me that there are young people today who do not understand the monstrosity of the expression "Holocaust deniers".  I grew up next door to some elderly neighbors who once had numbers forcibly tattooed onto their forearms and that was probably the highlight of that day. From Max and Ethel Rosenberg and a man I worked with, Joe Weiner,  I learned the stories behind those tattoos from the people who lived those lives and they spoke for those who did not live to tell their own tales.

History should not be a mystery. When are humans world wide going to grow up and stop being enslaved by religious and/or political dogma  and the fear and narrow-mindedness that it breeds?  There are so  many other things we could be doing with our passions, energy and resources. Wonderful things.

I had a dream that a very scary looking alien sat at a table with a big industrial sized blender and piles of scrolls, Bibles, Korans and Torahs. With a manic look on his face he began feeding them into the blender along with a few raw fish - was it Dan Acroyd doing Bass-o-matic?- all the while he's describing how these books appeared to be the source of power of the puny humans. Gleefully, he hits the LIQUEFY button for a minute and then chugs the whole mess, wipes his face with a scaly green forearm and strides away shouting "NOW TO CONQUER THE EARTH!".  Was it the burrito I ate for dinner or too much CNN?

cusspots transformed

What is it about containers that compels us so? Little places of safekeeping?  When I was a teenager I would take the train into Manhattan and head for a store called Takashimaya. It was a department store that sold everything under the sun. Looking back it was probably a Japanese version of Walmart. But I was drawn to a department that sold transparent, colored acrylic plastic container. Hard little brilliant jewel colored rectangles and squares of plastic with tight fitting lids. The magpie brain was always overwhelmed and ever covetous.

 As I got older the compulsion switched to baskets which are everywhere in my studio stuffed to the gills and woefully disorganized. When two dimensional design ideas fail me, I take up the crochet hook and some heavy cotton  string and set to my version of basket making. A memory from some former institutional life no doubt. Here we have some pseudo Boston bean pots and a few wild ones complete with tails. (for scale, those are one quart mason jars they are perched on, drying out)

lost cusspots

While I was rummaging around for things to overdye I came across another bunch of cusspots. These are getting the "Boston Bean Pot" treatment and will be left soft. That's it...no more soda ash, cloth or dye....for awhile at least. 



Now to see if  I can get in one or two more swims. It's gotten chilly at night and there's no enough sun on the pool during the day to warm it again and I'm not the hardy, North Atlantic swimmer I used to be.

wild things

Whoever designed the building and landscaping where I work must have been a Mayan in a former life. This is the last leg of a huge zigzig stepway...to nowhere. It ends right at the street so no one ever uses it except the wildlife. We are a short ride to downtown Atlanta and this office park, easily less than half occupied, is fast becoming a wildlife sanctuary. This bed of flowers was alive with butterflies earlier in the day. Last year a family of geese took over the opposite tower and you could not walk down the steps because they would attack defending their territory.

The other night I watched trio of coyotes stride purposefully  through the parking lot. I've seen the odd one as I drive home but it was startling to see this squad together. Tall adult in the lead, two smaller ones watching the flanks as they went. No doubt they are working the overpopulation of  Canadian geese that live here - and the feral cats.  

A very large owl flew right across my path as I was driving out of the park. It's encouraging that  there are plenty of creatures doing well despite what humans do to their surroundings.

very Labor day

It was a real labor day all day everyday for me this weekend. I divided my time between working at the whine mine (where people seemed to know that we are a 24/7 operation) and doing an about face and scrambling to make two important venue deadlines. 


For a while, I was going to sulk and eat worms and not enter. I got over it.

Rosemary's Dogs

There was little to no loss of color in the washout. I didn't even bother to iron this lot. Just folded them up to stack and gloat over. 

I've called this one Wisteria. Praise to the bugs in the oatmeal!

hatching out splendor!

Although I do not know the meaning of restraint when it comes time to dye, this new take on using granular materials to  carry the dye has returned some amazing results. Those dark flecks in the foreground are oatmeal flakes and some dead bugs that had taken up residence in the large container of oatmeal.

I couldn't wait to finish hosing it off to take this picture.  The best part is ..I know exactly how I did this and could duplicate the effect. 


and the blues, greens and purples are waiting.

Last Dyefest of 2010

Here are just a few of the smaller pieces from what's probably the last dyefest of the season. there are more to do but the sun is still poaching hot out on the deck..I may wait until tomorrow to finish the rest and do some overdyeing.

It's been a long day already. The piece hanging from the rack in the background was a piece that I put down on the table when I was mixing the colors. There are another whole group off camera that have been dyed using buggy oatmeal. Those should be interesting, bugs and all.

work view

We've been recently given permission to "claim" our real estate at the office if we have been there at least six months. Over a year ago I selected a seat that no one else wanted so I've been lucky and comfortable there. My back is to a wall of windows and a door and it's only half a cube, on the corner of Crazy & Main. I like the natural light, the view of the pines and now, I'm free to decorate a bit so I brought "Backyards" to work with me to enjoy it a bit before shipping.


My marigolds are going into fall overdrive. Here's one of the smallest cusspots on my desk.

And a picture of the moon that was worth getting pulled over for. I stopped for a few seconds on an overpass on the way home and shot this out the car window. It was a spot that had the least amount of light pollution and there wasn't another soul on the road except for a police officer who pulled me over to find out what I was up to.

farewell and adieu

"Backyards 1" will be on it's way to a private collection very shortly. I spent some time this morning taking  a lot of good pictures by way of record and memory keeping and right away I was reminded about the value of working loose & relaxed and the enjoyment that came with the making of this one from the gift of the vintage cloth, the experimental dyeing to the quick and dirty designing that fell together without a whole lot of fuss or angst.

so raw

What do you see?  A pile of old sheets?


I see pure potential!

A friend has a naughty dog who raises mayhem with the bedsheets, digging for that ever elusive comfortable place, tearing the fragile 100% cotton fabric in unmendable ways. I hate it for you but I'm thrilled you thought of me before deep sixing  all this fabulous cloth.

This is hands down my most favorite kind of cloth to work with. Vintage, well used sheets take the dye in strange and wonderful ways. Not just into the cloth and the thread, it seems like the very soul and being of the cloth is anxious to absorb the color as if to find, one more time, a way of  being useful and alive in new and wonderful ways.  I am dizzy with the anticipation of color.